City council passes budget with personnel cuts

CHILLICOTHE – The Chillicothe City Council approved a nearly $34.7 million budget Monday, capping off months of hand-wringing over city finances that began with the rejection of the safety forces and road improvement levies in May.

The roughly $16.4 million general fund, from which much of the spending for essential city services comes, is down from more than $17.1 million in 2014. Cutbacks include the loss of five firefighters and two police officers. City officials, most notably Mayor Jack Everson, have attributed the staffing cuts to voters’ rejection of the levies’ proposed income tax increase.

The increase — from 1.6 percent to 2 percent — would have brought in an estimated $2.8 million a year to the city over a 10-year period if it had passed.

Half the amount was to be used for maintaining staffing in the police and fire departments while adding two police officers. The remaining portion was intended to pay for street and alley improvements in addition to hiring an engineering aide for the city.

The city pursued the levy in part because of the $700,000 shortfall it faced after not obtaining two grants that paid for five firefighters and two police officers, Everson said.

The 2015 budget also reflects the elimination of the city’s Equal Employment Opportunity position, which is held by Tamra Lowe and whose duties will be absorbed by Human Resources Director Tammy Bochard. Lowe learned last month that she would be laid off effective Dec. 31.

Having been proposed and fine-tuned by Everson with input from city Auditor Luke Feeney, department heads and council members themselves, the budget was passed by the council with limited revisions and no last-minute changes.

Since the budget’s first reading last week, city officials scaled back capital expenditures by about $115,000, much of it coming from Parks and Recreation purchases that were not approved, such as a dump truck for $41,750 and pool filter updates and painting for almost $30,000, and requests that weren’t specific enough.

Still, the department received the green light to spend a total of almost $260,000 on items ranging from lights for the floodwall path ($30,000) to mowers (about $135,000 total).

A portion of the 0.1 percent income tax levy voters approved in 1992 for the parks department has to go toward capital expenses. The city has not tapped into that specific revenue stream for parks-related capital purchases in several years, so there are sufficient funds to cover those items, Feeney said.

Councilwoman Pat Patrick suggested that the council hold back on approving some of the capital expenses upfront and instead phase them in as needed, but she failed to garner support for the change and ultimately voted for the budget as is, along with the rest of the council.